In the World Wide Web (WWW) environment, client machines communicate with Web servers using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The Web servers provide users with access to files such as text, graphics, images, sound, video, etc., using a standard page description language known as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML provides basic document formatting and allows the developer to specify connections known as hyperlinks to other servers and files. In the Internet paradigm, a network path to a server is identified by a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) having a special syntax for defining a network connection. So called Web browsers, for example, Netscape Navigator (Netscape Navigator is a registered trademark of Netscape Communications Corporation) or Microsoft Internet Explorer, which are applications running on a client machine, enable users to access information by specification of a link via the URL.
FIG. 1 shows an example of a typical Web browser graphical user interface (“GUI”) display on a client computer. On a portion (100) of a user's computer display, a Web browser (110), in this example Netscape Navigator, runs in its own window. In this example, the Web browser is currently pointed to the top-level or home page of the example Web site, as indicated by the URL http://www.corp.com in the location bar (140). This Web page, “index.htm”, is configured to split the GUI display into three frames. The upper frame (120) is used to display a general banner, the left frame (130) is used to display a list of hyperlinks from the top-level Web page (or navigation bar), and the right bottom frame (150) displays the contents of the currently selected Web page. The top of the Web browser display includes a row of control icons, including a “back” button (160) and a “forward” button (170). Additionally, a domain history button (180) provides a drop down history list of the URLs of Web sites most recently visited by the browser application.
When the user of the Web browser selects a link, the client issues a request to a naming service to map a hostname (in the URL) to a particular network IP (Internet Protocol) address at which the server is located. The naming service returns an IP address that can respond to the request. Using the IP address, the Web browser establishes a connection to a server. If the server is available, it returns a Web page. To facilitate further navigation within the site, a Web page typically includes one or more hypertext references (“HREF”) known as “anchors” or “links”.
Currently, some Web pages display icons, each icon representing a link to dynamic information that changes over time, such as product information in an advertiser's “home” page. In FIG. 2, there is shown an entry (210) with an icon (200) alongside it, whereby the icon (200) is emphasised with the term “NEW”. Once a user clicks on the entry (210), he/she is typically routed to an associated dynamic piece of information. However, with some Web pages, it is frustrating for a user to follow an entry (with an associated emphasised icon conveying that the entry is “new”) and finding that he/she has been routed to information that is out of date, partially out of date or, information which they have already seen. It is often the case that during maintenance of Web pages, the state of emphasised icons remains static and is not updated. This results in outdated icons and therefore, by placing emphasis on these icons, a user is misinformed.
Additionally, users are currently unaware of the length of time that an emphasised icon has been displayed on a Web page. For example, even if an icon is tagged as “NEW”, the relevance of the associated material will degrade over time. Currently this aspect cannot be conveyed effectively to the user.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,333,256 describes an application or terminal emulation program executed on an information processing system. The program is represented by the display of a first icon on a display device. If during the execution of the application or terminal emulation program, a virtual display buffer associated with the application program, is updated, a second icon is displayed on the display device to indicate to a user of the system that a change in the status of the program has occurred.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,821,927 and 6,243,089 B1 describe network browser applications which are improved by providing visual status indications informing users that currently displayed pages are one of: old (outdated), partly old or new. Conventional browser applications load old or partly old page information from a cache and new information from a (usually remote) server to which the browser links via a network. A user expecting to view only new information (e.g. information that might be useless if out of date) is alerted by present status indications to request the browser to reload the entire page; which the user can do by operating a reload selector/icon conventionally presented by the browser. Various alternative status indications are shown, along with potential associations of such with a reload selector button (or equivalent icon). Specifically, U.S. Pat. No. 5,821,927 details a browser display indicator which signals to the user that the Web page currently displayed need to be refreshed from a remote source, for example, by using differently coloured icons. U.S. Pat. No. 6,243,089 B1 details a browser display indicator which signals to the user that the Web page currently displayed need to be reloaded, for example, by using selectively illuminated icons.
The current problem with visual status indications within the Internet environment is that they are viewed generically by all users. Thus, there is a need for personalised views of these indications within a Web browser session. There is also a need for the visual status indications to be automatically maintained. There is also a need to convey the age of the visual status indications to a user.